CWBP 2 : Determining the genre and era

[Azélor]

So far, not much has been decided. Well, we agreed on a couple of things.

For the setting:
Mid fantasy with mid magic (pretty common fantasy world)

Era: middle age or renaissance seems the most popular

Astrophysics: we tried to make it more exotic but in the end it will probably end in something that only have a visual effect (such as having 2 moons but the second one is very far)

Other suggestions:
The guy with the weird eyed avatar (Ghostman!?) suggested that people would rather use major magical power source instead of the magnetic poles to navigate/travel. Not that there is no magnetic poles, it's just that people either don't know about it or do not use it. They use magical sources and starcharts to get around.

modernhamlet suggested a denser atmosphere that would allow flying devices like daVinci or something. But if it's just about flying boats, magic can solve the problem too.

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Aside from that we still need a world map. I see 2 ways to achieve this.

1: everyone submit a map and we choose the best.

or 2: we begin to wonder what we would like the map to look like and we build it together. Or one of us build/modify it and wait for approval.
At the beginning, I wanted to do #2 but too few people seemed interested at the time so I made a contest. It did not really work that well in my opinion. I'm sure 2 would be better. I think someone told me he would like a pangea world. Well that is the kind of suggestion that could start a discussion. So, what kind of world do we want? Any particular geographic elements? We don't need to have the whole world right on the beginning; we can just start with one continent. But the general layout of the world should be completed before mapping regional areas.


The other thing we discussed was dividing the map for regional mapping. Squared or odd shaped? With or without buffer zones?
Depending on how Viewingdale work (a mapping software), buffer zones might be unnecessary if it's easy to update. I'll ask Redrobes about that.

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How to create the world:
1: everyone take some lands and decide what's on it. It end up more a patchwork than a credible world

2: decide collectively, vaguely what's on the land: approximate countries boundaries, or cultural boundaries, important cities. The idea is to make a credible fictional world that is interesting to read about or playing in a RPG.


ps: I know that my point of view is totally biased

[Falconius]

Other suggestions:
The guy with the weird eyed avatar (Ghostman!?) suggested that people would rather use major magical power source instead of the magnetic poles to navigate/travel. Not that there is no magnetic poles, it's just that people either don't know about it or do not use it. They use magical sources and starcharts to get around.

modernhamlet suggested a denser atmosphere that would allow flying devices like daVinci or something. But if it's just about flying boats, magic can solve the problem too.

I am still all for Ghostmans alternate mapping points. I was considering that due to their "magical" influence the influence of the magnetic poles could not be reliably found and so they were used to more reliably navigate. Indeed one might suppose that if you could measure the distance to these nodes as well they'd be used for triangulation and be vary reliable. Or maybe there could be roaming nodes that screw this up every once in a while.

Ghostmans map node Idea could also be worked in with the Guilt that haunts idea. Heres what I have in my mind: There are various aspected nodes of "magical" influence through out the world, these grow stronger and weaker, and grow more and less numerous based on the level of "guilt" (whatever that may be) in the world. This is caused by the intersection of an alternate mirror world, based on the denizens moral doings. The more power these nodes have the easier it is to go from one to the other for those with the ability to do so. Also growing the power of the nodes could cause some interest in that some are obviously going to be inclined to increase their powers and some are going to try and eliminate such threats. I'm not sure if doing a good/bad aspect is going to work well, although this is an obvious implied element. Fullmetal Alchemist avoided the moral implications of a similar interaction for quite a while, but we wouldn't have the luxury of story within which to do so.

The astrophysics also made me think that what if their was only one moon on each mirror but they were visible in both somehow. Also what is perhaps on those moons, civilizations. Omniscient beings? Semi-immortal? Space dust and rocks?...

Personally the problem I have with the resurrection/reincarnation idea is the complexity of handling it. I'm all for either on a very limited scale, but in such a quantitative manner I'm not too sure where to go with it myself.